Uganda makes it a crime to identify as LGBTQ: What is this Bill; what’s the status of gay rights elsewhere

About the new law

The new law, if passed, will be the first to outlaw merely identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ), according to rights group Human Rights Watch. In addition to same-sex intercourse, the law bans “promoting and abetting” homosexuality as well as “conspiracy to engage in homosexuality”.

Supporters of the new law say it is needed to punish a broader array of LGBTQ activities, which they say threaten traditional values in the conservative and religious East African nation.

Violations under the law draw severe penalties, including death for so-called aggravated homosexuality and life in prison for gay sex. Aggravated homosexuality involves gay sex with people under the age of 18 or when the perpetrator is HIV positive, among other categories, according to the law.

Support and Opposition to the law

The legislation was supported by nearly all of the 389 members of parliament. Lawmaker David Bahati said during debate on the bill, “Our creator God is happy (about) what is happening … I support the bill to protect the future of our children.”

Frank Mugisha, a prominent Ugandan LGBTQ activist, denounced the legislation as draconian. “This law is very extreme and draconian … it criminalises being an LGBTQ person, but also they are trying to erase the entire existence of any LGBTQ Ugandan,” he said.

A rights activist told the BBC that a fear of more attacks on gay people has arisen. “There is a lot of blackmail. People are receiving calls that ‘if you don’t give me money, I will report that you are gay,'” the activist said.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International called the Bill “appalling”, “ambiguous” and “vaguely worded”. “This deeply repressive legislation will institutionalise discrimination, hatred, and prejudice against LGBTI people — including those who are perceived to be LGBTI — and block the legitimate work of civil society, public health professionals, and community leaders,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s director for East and Southern Africa.

Status of the LGBTQ community in Uganda

Gay Ugandans already face legal discrimination and mob violence. In recent weeks, Uganda authorities have cracked down on LGBTQ people after religious leaders and politicians alleged students were being recruited into homosexuality in schools.

This month, authorities arrested a secondary school teacher in the eastern district of Jinja over accusations of “grooming of young girls into unnatural sex practices”. She was subsequently charged with gross indecency and is in prison awaiting trial. The police this week also arrested six people accused of running a network that was “actively involved in the grooming of young boys into acts of sodomy”.

The Ugandan agency overseeing the work of NGOs last year stopped the operations of Sexual Minorities Uganda, the most prominent LGBTQ organisation in the country, accusing it of failing to register legally. But the group’s leader stated that his organisation had been rejected by the registrar of companies as undesirable.

Status of LGBTQ rights in Africa

More than 30 of Africa’s 54 countries, including Uganda, already ban homosexuality. Additionally, of the 69 countries that have laws criminalising homosexuality, nearly half are in Africa.

However, efforts are on in the direction of decriminalisation of homosexuality too. Angola’s President Joao Lourenco in February brought into effect revised penal code to allow same-sex relationships and banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Gabon reversed a law that had criminalised homosexuality and made gay sex punishable with six months of imprisonment. Meanwhile, Botswana’s High Court ruled in favour of decriminalising homosexuality in 2019 and Mozambique and the Seychelles scrapped anti-homosexuality laws. A Trinidad and Tobago court ruled that laws banning gay sex were unconstitutional.

Status of LGBTQ rights in India

The Supreme Court recently referred to a five-judge Constitution Bench the petitions seeking legal recognition to same-sex marriages, saying the matter raises questions of “seminal importance”.

In its order, a three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, said the submissions on the issue involve the interplay between constitutional rights and specific legislative enactments, including the Special Marriage Act, besides the rights of transgender couples.

In 2018, the Supreme Court had repealed Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which criminalises homosexuality. However, there is no legal approval for adoption of children by same-sex couples and blood donation by LGBTQ people is banned.

Status of LGBTQ rights in rest of the world

According to Pew Research Center, 62 countries criminalise consensual same-sex acts by law, while 129 countries don’t criminalise them. Only 28 countries in the world recognise same-sex marriages, and 34 others provide for some partnership recognition for same-sex couples, according to International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA). Death penalty is the legally prescribed punishment for homosexual acts in Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

In the US, more than 450 anti-LGBTQ Bills have been introduced in various states, said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre, who pointed to a proposed Florida Bill that would give the state the right to separate transgender children from their parents.

Human Rights Watch said Tennessee, Texas, and Arizona are tabling laws to ban drag performances when children are present. As many as 150 of those would specifically restrict the rights of transgender people, the highest number of Bills targeting transgender people in a single year to date.

Homosexual activity is legal in all 27 member states of the European Union, and in Central America. All but five nations in the Caribbean and Guyana in South America also legally allow same-sex consensual activity.

Iraq is one of three Arab-majority countries in the Middle East that doesn’t explicitly criminalize same-sex relationships. The others are Jordan and Bahrain. However, the region largely remains opposed to the idea of homosexuality, which is evident in instances like Saudi government’s campaign to remove rainbow-colored toys from shelves, a state clampdown and threats from a militant Christian group directed at LGBTQ communities in Lebanon, and a hashtag campaign that originated in Egypt recently that uses “fetrah,” the Arabic word for “instinct,” to insist that there can only be two genders, according to DW.

In the Asian subcontinent, Afghanistan is the only country that has a death penalty in force for homosexuality, but strict punishments are awarded in Bangladesh, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia and Brunei. On the brighter side, Singapore repealed a law that criminalised sex between men, while Vietnam declared that conversion therapy would be banned.

With inputs from agencies